


(Not) A Dream

by the_sharpest_thorn



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: (Like always), (VERY SMALL THO), Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Drug Addiction, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Johnny being an asshole, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, near death experience being experienced as something good (i don't know how to tag this im sorry)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27904678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_sharpest_thorn/pseuds/the_sharpest_thorn
Summary: The world is getting too much again. It rips and takes and makes the edges of Antonia’s eyes blur with how fucking loud everything is. She can feel a headache forming above her left eyebrow. Her fingers put pressure on the pulsing spot in a vain attempt to sooth the oncoming blow. Evidently, it does not work. Fuck me, she thinks, with familiar anger. This is not the first time an attack came out of left field, hit her from behind and made her stumble on her heels. It is, however, the first time this has happened with a terrorist living in her blaring mind. Well. The first time not being said terrorist’s fucking fault.“Fuck you too, you corpo cunt,” Johnny says from her side. “I didn’t ask for this either.”“And you ain’t exactly helping ,” Antonia mutters, opening the door to her apartment. “Asshole.”
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 7
Kudos: 142





	(Not) A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> So, I read an article about Cyberpunk 2077’s ealry gameplay and apparently pills are involved with the way we deal with Johnny. Funny enough, I had this idea in mind before I read it. Love that this scene is almost canon tho lol Anyway I wanted to write smut but ended up writing angst instead. Have fun! :D

The world is getting too much again. It rips and takes and makes the edges of Antonia’s eyes blur with how fucking loud everything is. She can feel a headache forming above her left eyebrow. Her fingers put pressure on the pulsing spot in a vain attempt to sooth the oncoming blow. Evidently, it does not work. _Fuck me_ , she thinks, with familiar anger. This is not the first time an attack came out of left field, hit her from behind and made her stumble on her heels. It is, however, the first time this has happened with a terrorist living in her blaring mind. Well. The first time not being said terrorist’s fucking fault.

“Fuck you too, you corpo cunt,” Johnny says from her side. “I didn’t ask for this either.”

“And you ain’t exactly helping ,” Antonia mutters, opening the door to her apartment. “Asshole.”

Johnny says something as response to that. A bitter insult involving her previous employ, no doubt. Antonia does not catch it; the rearing in her ears dissipates the jibe. The second she steps in, the ex-corpo marches right to her nightstand. With too much rush, she opens it, roughly snatches a clear bottle, half full with small black pills. The cap is thrown to the floor and two capsules land in her palm. Johnny’s voice pierces through the back of her head — he’s screaming, she realizes. Screaming something her deafening mind blocks out. Antonia swallows the pills with ease.

Five seconds pass — she counts it — and finally, _finally_ , her head is submerged in sudden cold, so comforting it feels like falling asleep in the bath; soundless, soft. (Sensing tiny little bubbles swimming out of your nose and into the surface.) Antonia falls to her bed and her mind goes numb.

All the noise, all the bullshit, all the festering overwhelming sensations that pierce her skin again and again, restless, unkind and unending, fall away. Everything goes quiet. She can barely hold the bottle in her hands. Sensation has left Antonia. Nothing hurts her. Nothings mesmerizes her either. She just, exists. Barely.

The first time she used this faux medication, Antonia thought she was dying. She had taken too many, the ex-corpo assumed, or the dosage had been miscalculated. Her body was shutting down. Slowly. And she had no strength to force her fingers down her throat and vomit. No willpower to call an ambulance. All she could do was lay there, accept it. It had been the closest thing to harmony Antonia had ever experienced.

Of course, then the pills wore off. _Back to the real world_ , she had thought, near tears.

But she has been careful. Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself. The ex-corpo does not use them willy-nilly. She does not swallow a bottle whole at the slightest inconvenience. Only in extreme panic, like the one forming before, does she take comfort in those little black pills. Of course, she knows there are other options. Anxiety medication is a thing that exists, and yes, she used to take them when younger, but none of those indistinguishable brands ever made her feel this way. None of them put her on edge of death. Put a comforter over her whole body and mind, and made the world disappear.

“God, you stupid bitch,” Johnny says, surprisingly loud. “You’re addicted to them.”

“Ssshh,” Antonia whispers, index finger lazily hovering her lips. “You’ll ruin it.”

 _Can’t you feel it_ , she thinks, shouts, maybe, to the ghost living inside her head. _Can’t you feel your mind shutting up and feel absolutely nothing? Just. Nothing. God. I rarely feel nothing. Don’t you? Isn’t loud in there, Johnny? Isn’t overwhelming and awful and tiring?_

He does not answer her. Of course not. He never answers her unless it is to annoy or wound.

Why is he still here, Antonia wonders, for she can feel the bed dip and hear Johnny rustling his hair. _How are you still here if I’m nothing?_ She thinks, too hard to speak.

“V,” he sighs, yes, he sighs, and he sounds as exhausted as usual, but less bitter. “How in the hell am I supposed to know that? I’m not as in control as you think.”

 _I know the answer._ Antonia always knows the answers. _Because I’m supposed to fade away and you’re supposed to take over. Isn’t that the ending awaiting for both of us?_

“I don’t know,” Johnny says. A silver hand brushes her bangs from her sweaty forehead. All she can feel is a slight pressure. “I certainly don’t wanna be stuck in your body.”

_My body is fucking great, you asshole. I’m a ten amongst fives._

She hears him chuckle above her. It’s deep. Rumbling. Makes her skin itch. Antonia frowns.

That has never happened before. Not while she’s like this.

She tries something. Her hand flops onto the bed, swims across her cotton sheets, feeling neither softness nor strain, and stops as it reaches Johnny’s knee. It’s solid. The texture feels just like real leather. Antonia would laugh, if she felt like to.

The brain is such a funny thing. Makes things not there, there. Makes you hear things which are never uttered, makes you feel things which do not exist—

“I’m fucking real,” he grunts. The hand over her hair tightens the slightest bit. For a second, Antonia wishes she could feel the pull. “Of course you do.”

There’s a smug tone in his voice. She does not care. Not right now.

“Come here,” she whispers, barely. Her head turns upwards, catches the dark eyes behind red tinted sunglasses. “Come here.”

Johnny surprises her. He obeys. The dead rock star gets so close she can smell the nicotine on his breath. It’s from earlier, when he watched her from the sidelines, a quiet judge to her ordeals, smoking a cigarette from God knows where. Something she should not smell. Something that doesn’t, objectively speaking, exist. Yet, in her mind, in her reality, does.

“Jesus, your brain _is_ too fucking loud,” he grins down at her. Johnny picks up the bottle from her numb fingers. He shakes it, and the pills go click-clack against one another. “I thought this was supposed to shut you up.”

Antonia licks her lips. She sees the way Johnny’s gaze follows her tongue. “You,” she whispers. Her hand on his knee stumbles up his shoulder, sliding over his neck. Antonia has no strength (and even if she did, she cannot hurt him, only _he_ can do the hurting) but it stays there. She can feel the pulse of a heart that is long dead. “You’re the virus.”

Something passes by Johnny’s eyes. Something dark, along a flash of pity. It is gone with a blink.

Her fingers curl over his fair skin. Antonia is meant to feel nothing. She thinks she feels nothing. Yet, Johnny is right. Her brain won’t shut up. Ever. Not when he’s around. And God, she wants it. If the searing frustration would just be him — _just_ Johnny. Rude, callous, infuriating, cocky, witty, charming, funny, brilliant _Johnny_ — she’d want it. Again and again. _Oh, God._ Antonia wants him.

 _Kiss me_ , she commands, gaze heated. Antonia watches him bite his lower lip. She wants Johnny to kiss her. She wants. Wants, wants, wants—

Johnny comes closer. So goddamn close his forehead brushes against hers. It is a gentle touch. Nothing like she’d imagined him to be. Antonia gasps, feeling more than pressure. A heat. She can feel a heat building up from her chest. The shining hand comes down to rest on her collarbone — it’s cold, so cold, a freezing crash — and her heart starts to beat fast, _faster_ , faster — and his lips, rosy with a tint of red, wet from his rough touch, finally fall down on her skin. On her cheek. Softly. So soft it hurts Antonia; much like a sharp small cut to the skin. They stay like this. Quiet, unmoving, serene. Johnny’s lips resting over her soft skin. Her mouth breathing over his. Embracing each other like they have always done so. It feels right. It feels like everything.

Fifteen seconds. Antonia counts it. Then, he moves away. Along with the warm sensation her body had begun to feel.

“Ask me again when you’re not high on black market pills.”

And he disappears. Glitches off Antonia’s reality so quick, for a minute, she believes this was all a dream. But it is not a dream. It is rough. Messy. Too much. In a dream, the comfort would have stayed, the emptiness vanished.

It is not a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I also posted this on tumblr but thought I should post this here as well! A bit more edited than the tumblr post. But pratically the same thing.  
> Also, fuck you Johnny, you dick (still love you tho!)


End file.
